ABSTRACT
Chapter 3 develops a novel way of conceptualising foreign policy, one that is sensitive to both discourse and affect, both structures and decisions, as well as both critique and explanation. It criticises the existing IR treatments of discourse and argues that their problems can be solved by a Lacanian approach. Foreign policy is redefined as a practice that is both discursive and affective, as well as both regulated and performative. The chapter then gives theoretical and methodological guidance for analysing foreign policy along the four dimensions of sedimentation, reproduction/challenge, affective underpinning and critical intervention.
